Family Business
by Simply Prettyful
Summary: Ever wondered if Moist Von Lipwig ever found out he was a father? What if the mother was dead? Thesilly takes after her dad alot. OC character: Thesilly Von Lipwig. T for safety.
1. The 100 year prophecy first prologue

_**Family business**_

_**By The Graveyard Girl**_

Thesilly is a con artist... and a robber and a thief and a fraud and a girl faced with choice: Death by hanging, or go with her father to the post office and sort out her life.

Tough? Not really.

All she has to do is help post the mail come rain nor shine, nor sleet/snow, nor dogs with orange eyebrows, a rather strange initiation for an _ignored_ society that no one cares to know about, the mysterious black bandits, a chat on _'What young men like to do at your age'_ with her father, and the postman's impossible task.

So not much really.

Oh! And a date with young Tom Watchful, son of a very important member of the Watch, would be extremely nice too, please.

_**The hundred year prophecy**_

"One pint o'bitter, please, Mr Barman sir," A young man asked in a low, hushed voice.

"O'coarse, sir," The barman pulled the pint and sent it down the line. "Enjoys tha sir, you netha know when it'll be yer las."

"Okay, Mr Barman, sir," The man nodded and pushed the pint away. He turned around to see a young woman behind him. "Can I help yer, miss?"

"That's no the right question, Mr Watchful," The woman bobbed a curtsy. "I am the witch Hannalie. I have come to give you a prophecy, Mr Watchful. And you must do your best to make sure your family blood line tells of this prophecy to their descendants and so on."

"Ha ha..Okay, Witch, Tells us this _prophecy_," Mr Watchful raised his hands in a jesting way and turned back to his drink.

"Mr Watchful...Tom Watchful! If you listen to this prophecy, I will tell you which lovely young lady here in this city, would love to be affectioned by you, Mr Watchful," Hannalie bargained.

"Dun," Tom Watchful turned on his heels and held his hand out to seal the deal.

"Very well, Mr Tom Watchful," Hannalie smiled transparently. "It goes like this..."

_**a/n: This FF is set after Going Postal but it is as if Making Money never happened. That means no Mr Fusspot, no vampiric chief cashier etc (possible mention or interaction of/with such characters possible in near future as told by my elbow)**_

_**Also, Moist is twentynine in this but Thesilly is fourteen. Just ignore the fact that he may have been 15/16 years old at the time please**_


	2. The one week prologue

_**Family Business**_

_**by The Graveyard Girl**_

_**The One week Prologue**_

"Mr Messenger... Can you please make these soldiers leave the room!" Moist Von Lipwig called from his bath.

"I Am Afraid I Can't Do That, Mr Lipwig," Mr Messenger answered from behind his closed doors. "They Were Sent By Lord Vetinari. They Will Not Leave Until You Accept Their Message, Mr Lipwig."

"And how, may I ask, do you know that?" Moist questioned as he motioned the guards to turn around for him to get out and change.

"They Told Me At The Door, Sir," Messenger 13 reported to the Postmaster General. "When I Asked Them."

"Oh...well.." Moist was lost for words. How could he, an ex-con artist, thief and fraud, have forgotten to ask such an obvious question? The answer: It's kind of shocking to have men walking on when your in the bath, wielding all sorts of pointy objects that could kill you.

"Will you accept the message now, Postmaster General?" One of Vetinari's men asked.

"Uh...Only if you leave the room and wait in my office," Moist said hastily. A relic from his _decent _upbringing had forced him to only exit the bathtub when alone.

"Of coarse, Postmaster Lipwig," The soldier motioned to his troops to leave the room, followed by Messenger 13.

"Gladys! Make tea for these gentlemen, will you?" Moist called through the labyrinth that was the Post Office.

"Of Coarse, Mr Lipwig," The Disc's first feminist Golem, always clad in a big blue blob they Post Office staff call its dress replied in his deep, earthly voice.


	3. Chapter 1

_**Family business**_

_**by The Graveyard Girl**_

_**Chapter 1**_

_**The Start Of The Adventure**_

_**In which our heroin experiences Hope for the first time – Signing The Noose - Last words of Albert Spangler – Hannah Handkerchief is hung – I'm Your Dad – Moist faints - Angels? There aren't any! - A Tour - All the best people in the world are mad**_

The thought of death, as the people say , does wonders to the concentration of a person; unfortunately, the person focuses on the prospect of living...even if they are going to be hung in a public place for all to see. Life is a joy. Is it not?

Thesilly Grabber was focusing all her power on the floor beneath her.

She was waist deep in the hole she had been clawing at with the fork for the past two weeks. It would have been quicker, too , if she had a spoon or a knife but NO! The gods had to give her a bloody fork!

Forks are useful for stabbing things, yes, but Thesilly thought that might make too much mess. Stabbing things is wrong anyway.

Even a criminal, even a petty one, knows that stabbing is wrong. A criminal never wants to be a murderer. That would change their career. A career that would end in their own death.

"Miss Handkerchief!" One of the prison guard approached the girls cell.

"Yes, sir?" Thesilly asked, now out of her hole which was now hidden by the bed, which was a plank of wood. At least she was aloud a bed.

"The other guards and I just have to say: Well done!" The officer broke into a scraggily grin.

Thesilly felt something inside her. She couldn't put her finger on it but ... it felt like Hope. Hope the joyous gift of the gods. Hope. The thing that Thesilly had long ago learned not raise or get up. The thing that could be crushed in a second.

"Er...For what, officer?" Thesilly asked.

"For making such a vast hole in only two weeks. You done more than the great Albert Spangler done to 'is cell wall with a spoon. And 'e was yer for much longer," the officer grinned with his wobbly grin even more, revealing some of his teeth were missing for some reason or other.

"I wonder... what were his last words, officer?" Thesilly asked the man.

"'E said: 'I condemn my soul to any god that can find it'" The officer tilted his head and swiveled his eyes to the heavens.

"Isn't it kind of strange that he say that?" Thesilly asked, bidding for time. "The gods obviously weren't in his favor."

"I s'pose. Maybe the god of thieves was..." The officer rambled, placing his big hand on his beard.

"Do you think he'd mind if I used them?" Thesilly asked. "I rather like them." She added.

"I think he'd be all right wiv it." The officer trudged away. "You'll be hanged by the time the clock strikes eight, Miss Handkerchief." He called over his shoulder.

"That's nice..." Thesilly sighed sarcastically.

"Ah. Miss Handkerchief. Petty thief? Of course," The executioner asked with a jolly tone in his voice. Even if she wasn't about to hang, Thesilly would have backed away slightly to escape both his foul breath and his glee with killing.

"I am not a petty thief! I am a criminal mastermind!" Thesilly protested.

"Well..If your a criminal mastermind, you ain't no Albert Spangler. Tell you what though, You can sign the rope to be like him," The executioner thrust a piece of rope under Thesilly's nose, which she took hesitantly.

"Do I have too? It seems rather odd..." She took the pen from the executioner. The pen was sleek and black. Its ink red. Blood red.

"It looks rather convincing, don't it?" The executioner asks with a snide grin. Thesilly gave a less than a quarter hearted laugh. It was at that moment, her hand started to throb in pain. Thesilly looked. Sentences were written on her hand.

_**Magic and trickery,**_

_**these are mine,**_

_**use them as you will,**_

_**take the offer and we shall meet,**_

_**H**_

_H?_ Thesilly narrowed her eyes. She didn't know a H. No one on the streets, that is. Tale the offer?

"Miss, your fingers are bleeding on the rope!" Back in the dingy waiting cell, Thesilly was brought back to the dark reality as the executioner snatched the rope out of her hands before her fingers let out a gush of blood.

_Great! Now I look like they stuck pins into my finger tips! _She thought in panic. She wanted to looked presentable before she died. Not that she wanted to die...it was just, her mother had died in a rather unusual way and didn't look very dignified. She wanted to die with the dignity her mother didn't have when she died.

"I'm sorry about the rope," Thesilly mumbled softly.

"Now...Would you like to select some last words, Miss Handkerchief?" The executioner asks of her.

"I'm rather interested in that Mr. Spangler you mentioned. What were his last words?" Thesilly stalled for time, thinking desperately of how she could escape.

"Well, at first it was 'I wasn't really expecting to die' but then he changed his mind and said 'I condemn my soul to any god who finds it first'," the executioner smiled gruesomely if triumphantly. He had remembered Albert's last words. His most important hanging yet. And this girl was next for the noose.

"Reckon he'd mind if I used them?" She asked, giving up on her racing mind looking for escape; The search had been fruitless.

"I shouldn't think so, miss," he shrugged. He didn't really care; he just wanted to get to the fun part.

"Great..." Thesilly said glumly.

"Cheer up, miss. You'll be dead soon. None of this will matter!" the executioner said with a distinct happy tone. Oh, how malicious he had grown since the Spangler hanging was measurable but no one, NO ONE!, couldn't say they didn't like killing things. Sure it was wrong to murder but killing is fun! People squish bugs on a daily basis, therefore killing the bug. People kill animals, albeit for a multitude reasons like food, furs/pelts to keep them warm e.t.c.

"Yippee!" Thesilly smiled an eerie set of white teeth at the man. A false smile that seemed to content the fully grown, malicious madman of an executioner.

The grey clouds rolled in as Thesilly walked up the wooden steps to the noose. The crowd grew silent as she did so.

"I forgot to ask, miss. Would you like the bag over your head, miss?" the executioner asked her when she arrived at the top. Thesilly looked down at her shackled hands. _**Take the offer...**_Her hand ordered her. _Oh, well...at least no one will recognize me.._ Thesilly thought to herself. She nodded to the bag. "Would you like to say your last words to everyone, Miss?" The executioner jeered from behind his mask.

"I...I...I..I condemn my soul to any god that finds it first!"She shouted as the black bag was shoved over her head with the noose. A tinge in her head as the bag covered the light and the assembled crowd.

"Nighty-night, miss Lipwig," The executioner whispered to the dead girl. He pulled the lever and Hannah Handkerchief died.

The fires crackled in the Oblong office. Thesilly slowly opened her eyes. A white velvet blanket encased the petite girl. Her hand slowly crept up to her tired eyes out of habit. Then Thesilly thought of what had happened to her.

"Awake, I see," A voice spoke into her dreamy haze.

"Am I dead?" She whispered; it was all she could manage. Her throat ached with pain. Just speaking hurt her enough to make her wince at the sound of the her own croaks.

"No, Miss Lipwig. You've yet to die," The voice stated. It was rather posh. Like that of the patrician, Lord Vetinari.

"Lipwig? I'm no Lipwig! I'm Hannah Handkerchief!" She croaked painfully.

"No. Your Miss Thesilly Lipwig. Hannah Handkerchief died earlier today," The voice seemed to be set in a continuous tone of voice. "Just fell. Her eyes seemed to bulge and then she dropped to her knees, gasping for breath."

"Thats a terrible way to go..." Thesilly contemplated. "But still...I ain't no Lipwig!" her name was Thesilly Grabber. She got the name when she was born. But it constantly changed as she grew older. She had the kind of face that was hard to remember. Cons came and go with the face and the name. Fraudulent opportunities came and went with the new name.

"It isn't no longer, Miss Lipwig," Thesilly still had no idea who was speaking. "I've taken my rightful and legal custody of you." Then the voice changed and laughed. "I think she really thought I was you, my Lord!" The voice stepped into view. "Alright? You took quite a strangling." Thesilly eyes grew wide. She had been hung! Hung! She lunged up put tripped over her blanket. One second, the world was upright and normal, the next, it was whirling around Thesilly, the next, the world seemed to consist of dark robes and boots.

"I was hung! I was hung!..." She repeated the phrase panicked.

"Yee gods, girl!" The man with the voice had caught her before her face made contact with the hard, marbled and very very clean (Thesilly noticed) floor. "Calm down! It's not so bad! You can join the club! Or rather the family. We have customized jackets!" The man jested.

"I DON'T CARE!" Thesilly almost shouted. "I'VE BEEN HUNG!" Then it hit her. Join the club? This man had been hung himself.

"That is enough from you for now. You'll make yourself sick if you carry on like this!" The man commanded and for some reason being in his arms, hearing his heart beat, made her calm down slightly.

"Very well handled, Postmaster General. I am, indeed, very impressed," Thesilly had calmed down enough to look up at the very stern and menacing face of the patrician. Lord Vetinari stood there, looking down at the girl wrapped in a blanket with unnerving eyes.

"Why! Thank you, Lord Vetinari!" The man answered the compliment that the lord had given the Postmaster General.

"Postmaster General? Is he here?" Thesilly asked confused as she unwrapped the blanket and hung it over her shoulders. The man with the voice that had caught her stepped into her view and held out a very formal hand.

"Postmaster general Moist Von Lipwig. At your service, m'dear!" Oh Anoia! He was the Postmaster! He wore the golden suit and everything! What did he say earlier? '_I've taken my rightful and legal custody if you'_! Oh sherbet!

"If your taking legal custody... Ain't you gotta be my father to do that?" She asked.

"Yes." The Postmaster shrugged.

"But that means your not taking my custody legally," Thesilly knitted her eyebrows, confused beyond measure.

"I am taking it legally!" The postmaster seemed to think the sentence slightly funny. _I never took things legally before! Always illegally!_ He thought with a grin.

"But you would need to be my father for that."

"That I am," The Postmaster waited for the words to sink in.

"What thats impossible! Mother said you died of hanging..." Thesilly's eyes would have burst if they got any bigger (as wizards have proved and said how hard it is to clean up burst eye goo from the meter radius, of which direction, the victim was looking at). "You really are my father?"

"Yes, I am," The Postmaster momentarily looked pale. Then his eyes fluttered. Then his head connected to the floor. Thesilly rushed but didn't catch him in time.

"He'll be fine. Its you I really want to talk to, my dear," The patrician smiled eerily. "I want to talk to you about angels."

"Angels? There aren't any!" Thesilly laughs.

"And, pray tell, why ever not, Miss Lipwig?" The lord inquired.

"When you've lived on the streets all your life, it hits you pretty hard when you realize that your life probably won't get any better. Angels don't exist."

"A good and valid point, Miss Lipwig. But I think rather differently. I think you only get one or if your lucky, like the Postmaster here, two. I like to think of myself as your angel, Miss Lipwig," And Vetinari launched into his angels speech that the one, the only Moist Von Lipwig himself had heard so long ago.

"...The point is, Miss Lipwig. You need to sort out your life. Your father, knowing my methods, will assist you in anyway he can, starting with food, clothing and a home." The Lord Vetinari finished. The recently awakened Postmaster nods in approval, holding a cloth with ice to a gash on his forehead. _That's gonna leave a mark!_ Thesilly had thought when she first saw it.

"Oh! We'd better go, my lord. You have visitors in half an hour," Moist noticed the clock on the wall. A beautiful one with a face the size of Thesilly's head times three. It had black vines etched into it. Birds actually flew across it because a wizard had enchanted it to do so.

"Oh, well then. Good bye, Postmaster General. And goodbye to you, Miss Lipwig," Their audience with the lord was over.

"This is it!" The Postmaster stepped out of the carriage with a flurry. Thesilly stepped out, admiring the big columns that had been built to keep the upper levels of the Post Office from collapsing onto the ground floor. Since the refurbishment, it looked grander than the old Grand Trunk Semaphore Company's building ever was. It now rivaled the bank; and the bank one of the best architectural sites in all of Ankh-Morpork.

"It's beautiful!" Thesilly exclaimed. Moist grinned and led her indoors.

"This is the main room, where customers come to send letters and buy stamps. Over there, counting the stamps he has collected, is Stanley, our head of stamps. He used to be a total pin head but stamps converted him and he became 'unpinned' as one might say," Moist waved to the man. "Careful though. He was raised by peas."

"How's that even possible?" Thesilly asked. Moist shrugged with a sound usually linked with the phrase 'I don't know'.

"Hello, Postmaster! We sold a lot of stamps today! We'll need at least another thousand or two for tomorrow!" The man that was raised by peas called over. "Mr Groats just gone of to the back, sir."

"Mr Groat? Who's that?" Thesilly whispered.

"He's my deputy," The Postmaster said simply.

Father and daughter carried on with the tour of the Post Office. Thesilly met Mr Groat. He was a small old man with a very peculiar smell.

"Why does he smell like sulphur?" Thesilly had asked.

"He puts it in his socks," Moist replied and nothing more was said about it. They carried on from there. They past Gladys, the discs only female-ish golem, and Miss Maccalarait, a rather old woman that wore cardigans and skirts that reached her ankles.

"And here," Moist said, standing next an oak door with a gold coloured plack on its front reading: _Guest room three_. "Is your room. We'll change the sign as soon as we can."

"'We' being who exactly?" Thesilly asked under her breath.

"Whoever gets round to it. Now, go on inside and put your things where you want them. I must go and open the Post Office for the afternoon shifts," The Postmaster left hi new-found daughter to her room and her thoughts. _This is going to be quite the experience_, she thought to herself. _Most the people here are mad...but then again, most the best people in the world are mad!_ And Thesilly started her new life at the Post Office.


End file.
